xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/stdlib/getenv.3 (revision 2a399c6883d870daece976daec6ffa7bb7f934ce)
1.\"	$NetBSD: getenv.3,v 1.7 1995/12/28 08:52:17 thorpej Exp $
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38.\"     from: @(#)getenv.3	6.11 (Berkeley) 6/29/91
39.\"
40.Dd June 29, 1991
41.Dt GETENV 3
42.Os
43.Sh NAME
44.Nm getenv ,
45.Nm putenv ,
46.Nm setenv ,
47.Nm unsetenv
48.Nd environment variable functions
49.Sh SYNOPSIS
50.Fd #include <stdlib.h>
51.Ft char *
52.Fn getenv "const char *name"
53.Ft int
54.Fn setenv "const char *name" "const char *value" "int overwrite"
55.Ft int
56.Fn putenv "const char *string"
57.Ft void
58.Fn unsetenv "const char *name"
59.Sh DESCRIPTION
60These functions set, unset and fetch environment variables from the
61host
62.Em environment list .
63For compatibility with differing environment conventions,
64the given arguments
65.Ar name
66and
67.Ar value
68may be appended and prepended,
69respectively,
70with an equal sign
71.Dq Li \&= .
72.Pp
73The
74.Fn getenv
75function obtains the current value of the environment variable,
76.Ar name .
77If the variable
78.Ar name
79is not in the current environment ,
80a null pointer is returned.
81.Pp
82The
83.Fn setenv
84function inserts or resets the environment variable
85.Ar name
86in the current environment list.
87If the variable
88.Ar name
89does not exist in the list,
90it is inserted with the given
91.Ar value.
92If the variable does exist, the argument
93.Ar overwrite
94is tested; if
95.Ar overwrite is
96zero, the
97variable is not reset, otherwise it is reset
98to the given
99.Ar value .
100.Pp
101The
102.Fn putenv
103function takes an argument of the form ``name=value'' and is
104equivalent to:
105.Bd -literal -offset indent
106setenv(name, value, 1);
107.Ed
108.Pp
109The
110.Fn unsetenv
111function
112deletes all instances of the variable name pointed to by
113.Fa name
114from the list.
115.Sh RETURN VALUES
116The functions
117.Fn setenv
118and
119.Fn putenv
120return zero if successful; otherwise the global variable
121.Va errno
122is set to indicate the error and a
123\-1 is returned.
124.Sh ERRORS
125.Bl -tag -width Er
126.It Bq Er ENOMEM
127The function
128.Fn setenv
129or
130.Fn putenv
131failed because they were unable to allocate memory for the environment.
132.El
133.Sh SEE ALSO
134.Xr csh 1 ,
135.Xr sh 1 ,
136.Xr execve 2 ,
137.Xr environ 7
138.Sh STANDARDS
139The
140.Fn getenv
141function conforms to
142.St -ansiC .
143.Sh HISTORY
144The functions
145.Fn setenv
146and
147.Fn unsetenv
148appeared in
149.At v7 .
150The
151.Fn putenv
152function appeared in
153.Bx 4.3 Reno .
154